It may seem a bit early to be thinking about winter term, but Advising Days start on Monday, October 24, and registration won’t be far behind—which is why we thought you might enjoy having descriptions of many of our course offerings.

Friday, October 14, 3:30pm-4:30pm, in CMC 206. Join the Computer Science program and the Career Center for a roundtable discussion with Jawad Khaki, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Corporation (and Friday's convocation speaker). Khaki will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about the state of the field, what Microsoft is up to these days, what it's like to have a career in computer science, etc. From his bio: "Khaki grew up in rural Tanzania and was educated and trained as a computer engineer in London. He spent his early career as a hardware design engineer at GEC Computers Ltd. in Great Britain. In his 20s, he moved to the United States with his wife, two children, eight suitcases and five hundred dollars. Twenty years later, Khaki has over 700 patents filed under his management and he has contributed greatly to the development of Windows software, including the addition of dial-up and wireless networking and broadband infrastructure." Please join us for what will no doubt be an interesting and informative discussion! Refreshments will be served.

Thursday, October 13, 2-3pm, in CMC 319. Week 5 getting you down? Too many programs and exams due, too much stress, too little sleep? Well, we can't do anything about your workload, but we can help your sweet tooth (and social life)! Join your fellow Math and CS majors for a middle-of-the-day break for milk and cookies! Stop in for a few minutes or a little while and reconnect with your classmates and professors.

Carleton alum Kenneth Allendoerfer (psychology major '93) will be talking to on campus about the fields of human factors and human-computer interaction. Kenneth is currently an engineering research psychologist for the Federal Aviation Administration, andstudies air traffic controllers in their "natural habitat" to help design new equipment and work processes for them. Human factors is an area of psychology that can benefit considerably from expertise in computer science, since it considers how to design technology that interacts well with people. The event will be on Friday, October 24, from 7-8 pm in Hill Lounge at Sayles-Hill, and is being organized by the Carleton Career Center (co-sponsored by both our deparment and the Department of Psychology).

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, will be hosting its biennial Open House/Technology Forum on Friday, October 7. The full program can be found at http://www.cs.umn.edu/industry/open-house/schedule.php. The purpose of the Open House is to showcase faculty research and computer-related technologies developed regionally. It includes poster presentations, demos, panels, and key note speakers. Dan Boley (Graduate Admissions Chair) and Jon Weissman (Director of Graduate Studies) have invited a small number of Carleton seniors considering graduate programs in Computer Science to attend. Specifically, they suggest that this would be an opportunity for prospective students to learn about graduate school in general and their program in particular. There will be a special luncheon for students to talk about graduate school with other graduate students, as well as talk about the program. If you're interested in attending, contact Georganne Tolaas (tolaas@cs.umn.edu) and indicate that you're responding to the invitation that was sent to our department.

Epic Systems, based in Madison, WI, is seeking candidates for three positions:

• Software Developer
• Technical Services
• Project Manager

The deadline to apply for interviews is Sunday, October 2, 2005. To apply, go to: http://carleton.erecruiting.com/er/security/login.jsp. Log in, and upload your resume to the Documents section. Then do an Employer search for Epic, click on Jobs and follow the instructions. No cover letter is required, and the interviews themselves will be conducted on-campus on October 11, 2005. Epic has hired a number of Carls over time... check out the online alumni directory for a list!

The goal of the Seventh Annual Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC) is to advance excellence in education by having student teams design and implement computer-based solutions to real-world problems. The theme of this year's CSIDC is Preserving, Protecting and Enhancing the Environment. Teams participating in CSIDC 2006 are invited to design and construct a computer-based system that solves a problem of the team's own choosing. A team must select a problem of importance to society; for example, a system that minimizes the use of energy by an automobile.Teams taking part in CSIDC 2006 are encouraged to take a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving, and not all members of the team need be computer science undergraduates. Want to learn more? Visit http://www.computer.org/csidc. (This is entirely different from the ACM Programming Contest.)

Once again, Carleton will be assembling teams of students to participate in the ACM Programming Contest. There will be an informational / kickoff meeting on Wednesday, September 21, at 4:30 pm in CMC 319. Click above for more information.

From Scott Carpenter, Professor of French: Carl Weiner (History) and I have been involved in a project called "Esternay," located at http://esternay.carleton.edu/. The Esternay project consists of making accessible via the web a vast network of 19th century personal and professional letters, in various formats. We can add scans of original letters, their transcriptions in French, and their translations into English. Because of the way the letters are tagged, we can record various fields (such as date, author, recipient, location, etc.). The goal is to make this historical database available to students and researchers, who can both use the current stock of materials and also work on augmenting them. Click "Computing Job Opportunity On Campus" above for more information.

Dave Musicant says: I'm going to be having a party for computer science majors and prospective computer science majors at my house on Saturday, September 17, starting at 7 PM and going as long as we feel like it. I hope you can come! You can also bring a friend if you like. Dinner won't be provided, but food and drink will be. I live in Lakeville, so if you want to go and can't find a ride with other students, send me email. Similarly, if you have a car with additional space, send me email. Contact me directly for address and directions. Hope to see you there!

In June 2005, David finished his PhD in theoretical computer science at MIT. His research interests include a variety of topics in theoretical computer science, with a focus on large-scale information networks, especially social networks (like Friendster), and their evolution. Prior to his stint at MIT, David received a BA from Cornell and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. While living in the UK, he developed an unhealthy obsession with cricket; he also enjoys ultimate frisbee, road biking, and constructing crossword puzzles in his free time. When he was visiting Carleton for his interview, several of the Math/CS faculty made comments about how miserable the winters are in Duluth. He views this as an encouraging sign that he might just make it through until spring in Northfield. David's office is CMC 320. Stop by and introduce yourself!

Welcome to the first release of the Carleton Sentinel! The Carleton Sentinel is the new newsletter describing items of interest to the computer science community at Carleton College. We have an email list associated with this newsletter so that we can send out text versions of it on a semi-regular basis. To make this easy to manage, we have created an email list through Carleton's list server. Computer science majors are automatically added to this list, but anyone else can be added. If you are not currently a computer science major but would like to be on the list, go to https://lists.carleton.edu/info/carleton_sentinel and click "Subscribe" on the left hand side. The newsletter is currently being managed by Dave Musicant (dmusican), so contact him if you have any ideas for content or questions about subscribing.